I’m Just Saying

Early this spring I sat with some friends on a balcony at the beach discussing everything from liposuction to Lost. It was the first evening of a girls’ weekend celebrating Kit’s engagement. At some point, I mentioned that the last person to hit on me was a ninety year old man driving an EZ-Shop around Publix. “He told me I was as cute a booger. I was so thrilled, I almost tongue kissed him right there in the canned fruit aisle. That’s my new demographic. I guess I’m just coming of age.”

 

“We’re in our thirties, not eighties. You’re talking like I need to diaper you before bed tonight. Besides, coming of age is not about ageing. It’s when you first get your period,” Kit laughed.

 

“No way,” added Rach, “It’s when you do it for the first time.

 

The debate bounced its way from debutant balls to Superbad, until finally Suz broke out her iPhone. After a few boop-boop-boops she looked up, “Coming of age means a journey into adulthood.”

 

Later, much later, Suz and were the only two left on the balcony. I was in the midst of expressing my envy and admiration of anorexic willpower. I was saying how I imagine the anorexics getting together to badmouth the bulimics about the whole bingeing bit. “I know I’d be upset if every time I gave into the temptation of a Hersey’s Kiss, I sentenced myself to 90 minutes on the Precor. And the bulimics are somewhere topping off a sixer of calzones and box of Pecan Sandies with a bar of Exlax!” Then I was rudely interrupted.

 

“What is God’s name is Anna doing?” Suz blurted, squinting over my shoulder into the master bedroom. I turned around and peered through the narrow part in the curtains that framed Anna. She danced energetically and slightly off-rhythm in front of the mirror. She was buttoning up some sort of terrible fuchsia recital costume made of crepe. “Is she by herself?” I asked. “I’m confused.”  We slid open the glass door to investigate. Near the bed, Kit stood over a bulging Hefty bag that appeared to be hatching puffs of sorbet colored fabrics.

 

“I stopped by my parent’s house on the way down and picked up all my old bridesmaid’s dresses,” she said proudly. Rach and Becca had meanwhile assembled at the other bedroom door. In perfect robotic sync we all turned to Kit, then to Anna (realizing concurrently that she’d had first pick). Like a pack of tipsy jackals, we pounced on the bag ripping into the black plastic, clamoring for the cutest one. Finally the cloud of pastel settled when we each politely settled for the one that fit.

 

I chose a wrinkled sleeveless frock with an ecru top half and an exceedingly pleated, overtly puffed peach skirt made of drapery. A quick look at my tired, way-past-midnight reflection reminded me of story my friend Sara had told me.

She’d attended a day-after brunch set around the bride’s parent’s pool—the same place where the much larger wedding reception had taken place the night before. The brunch was one of those old-fashioned intimate gatherings attended by only a few out-of-town guests, clergy, and elderly relatives. The calm affair took an unexpected turn when the door to the pool house slowly opened and bed-headed bridesmaid with raccoon eyes and a crumpled dress meekly emerged followed by a groomsman with his tux tails tucked between his legs.

 

I’ve been meaning to ask Sara if they just tiptoed off into the azaleas, or if they ordered up mimosas and fixed themselves a plate of melon balls and shrimp and grits. I personally would have suggested the latter. Hell, just laugh it off. You know deep down great-aunt Merna and Pastor Primm think the whole thing is kind of cute. Besides, there’s nothing like a homemade biscuit to sop up the shame of a post-reception romp with some (you think his name might be Roy) guy you met twelve hours ago.

 

Meanwhile back at the ranch, or Destin condo, the following scene unfolded before me. To my left, Tam (mother of three), wearing the snug top-half of a Waters & Waters ensemble in forest green with braided detailing, circa 1998, helicoptered her arms side-to-side singing, “Fat girl in a little dress. Fat girl in a little dress-eh-ess.” Front and center Becca and Rach (both mothers of two) were shaking it Shakira-style—one in creamy, half-zipped Jim Hjelm number and the other in something I’m suspected to be a grandmother-of-the-bride stowaway. To my right, our crepe-draped dancer, Anna (step-mom of two), softly jumped up and down on the sofa to no particular beat at all. Every few minutes or so she’d stable herself with a slightly wider stance, carefully administer herself a sip of wine using both hands, and then back to the business of bouncing.

 

When the background began booming the theme from Rocky I and I realized that “getting stronger” was not quite what I was getting. I stealthed into my designated bedroom with a massive water bottle. After a long, and way more violent than probably necessary wrestling match with my puffy peach dress, Dianna Ross kept me from falling asleep with a loud, (yea for her) coming-out announcement. After that, not even my newly fashioned pillow-turban could keep Justin from informing me that he was, indeed, bringing sexy back. When I heard someone yell, “Look! Kit’s doing the worm again!” I smiled and thought, Maybe none of us have really quite come of age just yet.

 

I began to drift off as my ex-pretend-boyfriend, Jon, belted Living on a Prayer at volume-level 11. And I whispered, “I love my friends. Thank you God for each one of them.” 

One cold November morning on the way to school, my daughter said some profound words from the backseat, “I want to have a roller-skating party for my birthday this year.” 

 Well, crap.

This was all a bit much to absorb. For the past three years we’ve booked a room at the Embassy Suites, and she has invited two or three of her most soft-spoken and well-mannered friends to come spend the night. My friend Leslie, mother to one of them, comes to help and bunk with me in the adjoining suite. I didn’t invent it. But I think it’s one of the most ingenious parental conceptions since, well, the child.

“And I’m going to invite both third-grade classes. Boys and girls,” she declared. I flinched. 

Once I came to terms with my own issues with loudness and lots and lots of other people’s children, I recalled the last time I saw her roller-skating. I had arrived to pick her up from a skating party and spotted her, down in a little ball, paddling with her small hands against the slick hardwoods.

“I have an idea. Maybe you and I can practice roller-skating before the party,” I reluctantly suggested. “It’ll be fun,” I cringed at the thought of myself flailing around like a cartoon. Children would point and laugh. But I’d much rather them laugh at me, than at her on her birthday. I guess.

“That’s fine,” she said. “I don’t think I need the practice, but if you do that’s cool.”

I found a rink in the next city where no one could possibly recognize us. When we arrived the following Friday afternoon, I had to mentally shove myself out of the car and feign being pumped and positive. This is going to be a nightmare, I thought trying to recall which socks I’d worn under my boots because I planned on throwing them in the trash when this was all over. “Come on sweetie, this going to be great!” I beamed.

When we stepped inside the place, I was transported directly to 1981. With the exception of the people (for the most part), everything was just as I’d left it in my memory. It was as if I’d hacked my way in to some disco-decked time pod, with steel rafters and Slurpy-stained carpet. My senses shifted into blissful nostalgic overdrive with the smell of pizza and nachos, and colorful spots spinning around the rink floor. Even the way the skate attendant lethargically slid our skates across the carpeted counter added a familar tinge of excitement. My anxiousness evaporated, and I cast off my fear like a pair of knee-high tube socks.

Before I even knew what happened, I was swooshing from skate to skate, my hair feathering back in my wind, and my hips hitting every single beat of the music. I was turning figure eights and occasionally crouching down to jut out a leg to “shoot the duck.” It was just like I was nine again, not yet smothered with inhibitions or social decorum. I was back in a time I’d forgotten all about. A time when I was convinced talent scouts were following me and would surely snatch me up and ship me to Hollywood at any moment. A time when I’d leap contiguously down grocery store isles; fan kick in the lobby before church (my mother’s personal favorite); and recite scenes from the movie, Arthur, while in line with my mom at the bank, “Oh. You’re a hooker? Geez-sus, I forgot! I just thought I was doing GREAT with you!” I’d slur in my best Alabama-British. (No, wait. That was my mother’s favorite.)

It wasn’t before I flipped around to skate backwards, again, to Play that Funky Music White Boy, that I spotted my precious little girl clinging to the fabric wall. I suddenly came to. It was like someone ripped the rink right out from under me. I skidded over to her, “Oh honey are you alright? I thought you were right beside me.”

“Nope.” she said. “You almost knocked me down when you were doing the ‘Superman’ a minute ago. It’s okay. I needed to rest for a second anyway. And it’s fun watching you.”

My heart dropped into the boot of my skate. I knelt down and took her sweet face in my hands, “Come on baby. I want you to show me some of your moves.”

For the next two hours we held hands and skated in big, cautious circles, growing her confidence and shedding layers of inhibitions with every lap.

Maybe I’ll go back one day while she’s in school.

 

 

For me, the most essential of the warm weather neccessories is, by and large, the pedicure. By mid-spring I’m totally turned off by toe cleavage and ready to let my little guys go commando in something strappy. So last week, it was time.

 

Because pedicures take longer than standard issue manicures, and I only get an hour for lunch, I had to make peace with returning to the place within walking distance of work. This was a problem since I was/am in a fight with Veronika, the Russian manicurist.

 

Here’s how it started. The woman loves to brag about her children, “Duscha is tumbling champion of pre-school class!” (I snicker every time. Duscha.) “Bogdan now has bigger thigh muscles than husband.” (Ew.) And, “The twins were both at hospital last week. Fabi swallowed handful of cotton balls, and Marko ate digital camera memory card on same day.” (Snore. No wait, actually that one was kind of cool.)

 

Although I am much better at awkward silence, I was fine with the bragging. I’d choreographed my nodding and eyebrow raising patterns with my “aah” and “uh-huh” rhythms into a fun little face dance. But, it was what incessantly came after the boasting that built up to the blow out. “You have only one. When are you going to have more? You must have more children.”

 

A few months ago she went too far. I had already begun to suspect that my default answer, “I don’t know if we will or not,” was no longer doing the trick. But then she busted out with, “That is cruel to do to your daughter. She needs brothers and sisters. She will grow up selfish and spoiled.” All this spewed at me while she rubbed my hand like she was trying to stretch it into a huge Silly Puddy replica of her own hand.

 

Even though I’m quite positive she’s a few acrylics shy of a full-set, and I don’t like to mess with crazy, I did manage to work up the courage to lie to her face.

 

“We have tried and tried, Veronika. Children are simply no longer medically possible for my husband and me.” There I said it, hanging my head for affect and giving her a moment to be embarrassed and sad.

 

But instead she wheeled her chair back and stared at me as if I’d sprouted a third hand from my forehead, and she’d have to charge extra. I stared back and counted to 47 in my head before she reluctantly rolled back up to the station and resumed my manicure in cold silence. The quietness was nice, but I changed nail places after that.

 

Well now that pedi-season is back on, I have no other choice but to return to her place for the sake of time. So I went back last Thursday. I practiced my rebuttals on the walk over, “It is not my job to populate the earth, Veronika. That seems to be you and your bought-you-over-internet husband’s mission! So do not judge me. Now, bring on that salt rub.”

 

While choosing my color, I gave her the stink-eye. But then she turned around and spotted me. I did my over-anxious nerd  wave and pointed to my toes. She gestured to an empty massage chair, turned on the water, flung open a drawer and pulled a pair of XXL latex gloves out of a Kleenex-style box. I figured it must be a new store policy, but then noticed no one else administering pedicures wore gloves.

 

I sat down and dunked my feet in the sadistically lukewarm water. “How are your kids?” I asked.

 

She did not look up or answer. She only shrugged.

 

“How’s Walt?”

 

Again with the shrug.

 

Cool, I thought. I’ll read my mag. But the squeaking of the latex only revved my anger, and I could not concentrate on How to Kegel Through Your Work Day for the Best Night Ever.

 

I flashed my ADHD over to the women waiting their turn. All three of them wore tennis outfits—each glaring at those of us in pedicures chairs. I could hear them silently saying, I have to pick up my kid in two hours, and I have to go slam a few margaritas before I hit the carpool line. Do you mind?

 

I telepathed back at them. You’re all way too tan. But I don’t think they heard me, so I looked back down at Veronika. Why is she ignoring me? I acted as if she was tickling me. I squealed a tad and pulled up my foot. She snatched it back like a grizzly grabbing a slick salmon.

 

I could no longer stand it. “What’s with the gloves?”

 

“New policy!” She roared.

 

“Why is no one else wearing them?”

 

“You have foot fungus!” She screamed without looking up.

 

Oh my God, shut the hell up! I thought. And then said, “I do not! And shhhh!”

 

“You have pits in heal. Fungus!” She yelled.

 

“That is because I have had one pedicure in six months. I need new running shoes. And it is not a fungus.”

 

I pulled up my heal, propping it on my knee to get a better look. No pits.

 

“Alright Veronika. What is going on? Why are you acting all mad?”

 

“You lied to me about not being medically possibly for you to have children. Girl come in here who works with you. I ask her. She said you may not want to have another.”

 

I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

 

Pasty Cline chimed cray-zee in the background—or in my head.

 

“Seriously. Why do you care so much?”

 

“Your daughter needs a sibling,” she stared me down.

 

“Her father and his wife have a child together. She has a sister. She visits them every other weekend and on Wednesdays. They’re very close. ”

 

She dropped her file into the water. It dove down and bobbled back to the top.

 

“You not married to the father?” She gasped.

 

“Newp. Thought you knew that.”

 

“You divorced? Or she bastard?”

 

“She’s not a bastard, Veronika! I’m divorced. And remarried.”

 

“You’re soul is in great danger.”

 

That was it! I stood up, my toes grasping at the slippery bottom of the soak tub. The tennis ladies stared and whispered to one another. I lowered my voice and leaned over, “Here’s how this is going to go down, Veronika. So listen up? Finish my toes and razor the hell out of my heals—but don’t draw blood, of course. I will be coming back every other Thursday until fall. If I get you, we are not going to talk. You will scrape, and you will paint. I will read US Weekly and resent my lack of a tennis outfit and post-pedi margarita. Got it?”

 

She looked at me and, for a second, I thought she was going to punch me in the stomach.

 

“It is deal. But! I wear two gloves on each hand.”

 

“Deal!”

 

I sat back down, closed my eyes and let the massage chair play percussion.

 

 

 

 

When I was a teenager, the instant my mother began serving-up boy advice or fashion suggestions, her voice would evaporate into a distant murmur, and I’d escape to a short film, about my mom, in my head entitled Teen Martha Jean.

 

She’d be chewing gum, holding an armful of books and leaning against a T-bird in her pedal pushers, polka-dot blouse and neck scarf. I haven’t a clue of the color scheme because it always played in blank and white. Her hair was teased into the exact shape of a cartoon speech bubble. And her knee would swing back a shiny Mary Jane and a cotton bobby sock rolled into a large doughnut at her ankle. All very cliché, I know, but she, as it was reiterated to me often, was a good girl. And that’s how I imagined one of those might have looked back in those days.

 

Sometimes though, for kicks, I’d redesign the scene to one where she wore a thin, ratty baby-doll tee with the words “Property of Folsom Prison” running across her chest. (I wonder where I might find one of those today. Seriously.) Her cutoffs would fasten mid-ribcage and hula-hoop loops would sway from her lobes. She’d prop a bare foot on the dash, and relish the last of her ciggy while whirling a Pabst can from the T-bird window.

 

But mostly (out of respect, and because I could find no photo documentation to prove otherwise), the good girl scene remained my default lecture trance.

 

I usually came-to about the time she was saying, “I know you don’t think I know what I’m talking about, sweetheart, but I do. I really, really do.” Then she’d close with a pitchy, “I was very cool.” After impulsively channeling the scent of her musty yearbook, I’d halfway thank her and roll my eyes beneath my fried, spiral-permed mega bangs. Then, I’d spin on the heels of my white leather high-tops and dart off to the Galleria in search of something 90210 (the first season).

 

I felt fortunate back then to be a part of what I considered the only teenage generation in history with a truly timeless style. I envisioned a future where my BFF-teenage daughter might point to an old high school photo of me and ask if I still had that baggy lace-splotched blazer.

 

“Sure. I’m wearing it now. Anything stonewashed or splatter-painted will hold-up for, like, ever. You can totally borrow it.” I’d say, pushing my rolled sleeves up above my elbow and then scrunching my perm with another palm-full of mousse.

 

We all know trends come and go, and some come back again, and again. But for the most part, styles resurface in evolutionary fashion with a fresh edge, or at the very least, a new hemline. It’s God’s way of making sure we donate our clothes to the less fortunate, and streamline our closet space. (Although after a quick flip through last month’s InStyle, I do wish I’d saved my khaki safari jumper. The one I bought before Banana Republic had the dirty Jeep towed from its window.)

 

I know now I should’ve listened to my mother back then. She’s a woman of great experience and wisdom. The good news is that she continues to generously dole out an array of insight, from fashion to relationships. So now I listen. I might not always put every “if I may make a suggestion” to active use. But I do respectfully listen. Because, one day my daughter will be a teenager. And because I happen to know karma carries a Garmin. So somehow, someway, spiral perms will eventually track me down.

 

This year, my husband and I decide to sucker-punch the Valentine’s Day “special” menus and go out to dinner the night before. He’d made reservations more than a month ago at a place where you need to make reservations a month ago, even on a Wednesday. But I opt out and suggest we hit our favorite Italian place.

 

Normally I’m not one to turn down a five-star $48 entrée. And I take masochistic delight in a wine steward who rolls his eyes at my mispronounced order. But, this particular evening, I’m feeling unusually practical (tired). There’s something very appealing about staying in the jeans and sweater I wore to work. And at this little Italian place, I could get away with wearing a torn sweatshirt over pajama bottoms tucked into my Ugg knock-offs if I wanted. This place is not normal, and I take strange comfort in that. It is, to me, like my friend who seduces paperboys and steals oxycotton from her seventy-year-old housekeeper. At some point there should be an intervention, but for now I’d just like to see what happens.

 

So we arrive and park at what used to be a free-standing Taco Bell building. I could stop there and let you imagine the rest. But I won’t. I can’t. The interior is soaked in deep dark green, from the painted drop-ceiling tiles to the vine-carved carpet and literally everything in between. There are two massive crystal chandeliers on either side of the dining room. Centered between them sits a black grand piano, which apparently doubles as a synthesizer of sorts, depending on who’s driving. We’ve been there before when a little man, barely tall enough to see over the music stand, pounded out some of the best early Billy Joel I’ve ever heard. But tonight the room swells with ethereal rock-orchestra resonance, composed of sleigh bells, snare drums, horns, pipe organs and—I swear—a kazoo.

 

Beneath a scattering of hot pink Mylar heart balloons and springy red foil danglers (attached to the ceiling with duct-tape squares), the restaurant’s owner proudly mans the machine in his smudged green apron. The piano lid is decked with randomly placed clusters of wineglass shaped candles, and cupid coffee mugs sprouting heart-dotted tissue tuffs. Behind him on a golden credenza, three dancing dolls, Dean Martin, Hank Williams, Jr. and James Brown, stand still and silent in a semi-circle.

 

We are seated to Bohemian Rhapsody. “Man, I love this place!” My husband beams unrolling his napkin into his lap. Our Chianti is poured to Major Tom and our salads served to My Girl. The main course? Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? “Yes. Yes I will.” I say quietly, as I nod out blessings from one side of the room to the other before ecstatically wrapping my fork in angel hair.

 

The music keeps coming as the room empties, and I now have an unobstructed view of a couple slow-dancing (grinding/groping) next to their table. “I’m sorry,” I say. “Go ahead and order another glass. I am not ready for this to be over.”

 

About the time the man-half of the couple slides a hand down the back of the woman-half’s faded navy chinos, the owner/bandleader stands up. As Unchained Melody miraculously plays on without him, he screams, “We have to close now! I have ten people back in the kitchen waiting to go home.” He then gestures his hand out waist high, palm facing down. “Come back Friday. We’ve got a dwarf who’ll rip your heart out.”

 

“Holy crap! That sounds terrifying!” I laugh, nearly losing my last sip of Cabernet through my nose.

 

As he passes our table, he leans down, and whispers, “See those people dancing? They’re married. But not to each other.” Smearing his come-over back into place, he disappears through the green-vinyl swinging door, and the evening’s carousel ride comes to a halt.

 

We head home, happy as clams—over linguini.

 

 

 

 

 

Some neighborhoods have ice cream parlors, pizza places and corner drug stores, all within walking distance. The owners know your first and last name. Parents feel safe letting their kids ride bikes to meet their friends for hot dogs after school. Running groups gather at the coffee shop post-jog for organic green tea and whole-wheat cinnamon scones. 



 

Well. If you walk down my driveway turn left, go past four houses and hang a right heading straight, in about a block you’ll run smack into the back entrance of the neighborhood sex shop. What’s weird is, I live in a pretty decent neighborhood. In fact, if you walk in the opposite direction from my driveway, you’ll run into a golf course belonging to a country club, which is next to a lake where we walk the dogs, and my daughter feeds the ducks.

 

We don’t really know how it came it be, but surreally yes, there is a porn store over in my neck of the woods. Directly across the parking lot from a sweet little nursing home (which, I am sorry, is just plain mean), sits a building that, for years, hosted an Italian restaurant. It was one of those wonderful family-style places draped in tufted red vinyl, plastic ferns and Chianti bottle chandeliers.



 

This sex shop has been there now for about a year. And, from what we’ve heard, it was almost shut down by the city. But having recently appealed their case, the place has erected (eh hem) a massive 30-foot tall pole into the sky topped with a purple sign with a red heart in the center. Every time I drive through the parking lot (it happens to be a great cut-through to the main highway), I suffer a brief panic wave like I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere, and I impulsively reach for the door lock. But I’ve always been curious about what’s in there.



 

So one weekend, my husband and I were cutting through the parking lot on our way home from running errands, and I casually suggested we check it out.



 

After a quick recovery from my minor whiplash, we exited the car and made a run, or swift walk, for the door. The main room was tame enough. Secondhand mannequins in tacky, cheap lingerie. A broom-haired blonde looked at me as if to say, I know I look ridiculous. Can I come home with you and wear something warm from your closet? Another—a brunette who I swear flared her painted nostrils and raised the part of her right eyebrow that had not yet been rubbed off—looked at me with an almost audible, You think you’re better than me!?

 

“Yes! I sure do.” I said from the side of my mouth as I passed her and headed for the next room. That is before I was stopped by an attractive, surprisingly un-stripper-like woman who asked for my I.D. Now, even though I use great skincare products and exercise regularly, I rarely (never) pass for under 21. I thought to myself, It’s because we are so normal. We are the type who’d never enter a place of such sorts. She thinks we’re neighborhood narcs. With that, I was empowered and proudly dawned my driver’s license. I turned to my husband waiting for him to follow my regal lead. He informed us he’d left his wallet in the car. “Let’s just go,” he said, giving me a look. “Okay,” I shrugged. But he darted, roadrunner style, out and back into the store waving his driver’s license like it was the golden ticket, all before I could even take a step. Okay, so I totally made that last part up. He did make excellent time. 


 

If I typed up in a detailed description the things we saw in that room, I could be kicked off this blog site. Yes, there were DVDs for every fetish and then some. And “toys” that seriously seemed more like creatures from a bad space movie than like something you’d allow in your bed. “Hey! What’s this for?” I whisper-yelled at my husband, as I twirled a bendy, two-headed, purple “baton” high above my head. “Stop it!” He shushed, snatching it out of my hand and hanging it back up next to a silicone replica of a female “down-there,” which I had no idea they even made or still don’t know how it might even work. “Let’s get out of here. This is creeping me out,” he said. I shot him an are-you-gay look and zoomed over to the chubby chaser DVD collection. 



 

I then made my way down the wall to the classics. There was The Devil and Mrs. Jones. I had heard of that one. And there was something filmed in the seventies featuring Sylvester Stallone. Huh. Then, among the modern best sellers, I found a double feature in which the premise was a group, or posse you might say, of women who seduce men, use them up, and then kick them to the curb, ruining them for all other women. That wasn’t exactly what it said on the cover, but that’s the message I got. They wore cut-off shorts, fitted leather vests, cowboy hats, dusty boots and carried a lasso on one hip and a canteen on the other. (It’s important to stay hydrated when emotionally castrating a man). “I want this one!” I yell-yelled.



 

After a mildly embarrassing scene of having the case twisted out of my hand like I was a toddler holding a pink Daisy razor, I was discreetly led by my elbow toward the exit by my husband. After we crawled to our car on our bellies to avoid running into any neighbors making the cut-through, I said “Prude! I was going to buy that! Why couldn’t I get that movie?” He turned to me, “Be-cause! This is in our neighborhood. Places like this damage housing values. It’s not good for the area. And I can’t believe you are, all of the sudden, okay with it.”

 

Right away my clarity returned. “Oh crap, you are so right. I really don’t know what got into me. This place could attract sex offenders and hormonal trashy teenagers. That was stupid of me to even think about supporting it in any way.” I slumped down in my seat and stared out the window, steeped in shame.

 

As we headed up the driveway, I heard him say, “Well yeah that. And it was ninety bucks.”

The summer before my senior year in college, I came home, sick to death of school. I got a part-time job at a hip-at-the-time little bakery/eatery who made their own beer (remember when that sounded like a good idea?). I worked as a bakery cashier. In the matter of a few months, my pleated Duckhead shorts (part of the required uniform) went from the slung-low-on-my-hips kind to the wedged-up-my-butt in the back with inflated puff pleats and gaping pockets in the front, cutting me in half at the waist kind. I continued to wear them nonetheless. When denial serves free cream-cheese bearclaws, it can be a delightful place. 



One day, the general manager stopped by the bakery, crossed his short arms on the top of the pastry case, and gave me his important look. I could tell he was standing on his tippy toes in an effort to see over his forearms because he was wobbling slightly. On the other side of the case, I stood on a rectangular wooden box that ran the length of the case and added a good eight inches to my height. You needed to be able to reach over and hand a customer their selection without your arm smudging up the glass. Or, as I liked to think, you needed to be able to look down at customers, literally as well as figuratively, for their lack of willpower over simple sugars. 


“Hey, Bakery Babe?” Instantly I cut to a scene in my mind of me reaching over and pressing down on his head until his tip toes gave way to his heels, and I could no longer see him. But instead, I just swallowed the Heath Bar cookie half I’d just broken off and shoved into my mouth seconds before he walked up (we were allowed to eat the broken cookies, so I broke them often).

He was a blonde guy with a northern accent and a name I can’t remember. I do happen, though, to remember the name I secretly gave to the angry pimple he permanently hosted on his chin, Zoe. (There was something pubescently girl about it.) Each time he scolded me for not correctly consolidating the bakery shelves, I’d envision myself snapping on a bakery glove, reaching over and pinching hold of Zoe. He might try to pull back, but I’d have a choke hold on her. 



“Legs and Squirt” (his nicknames for Angela and Chandler) “are headed back to Sewanee,” he said. Hearing the word Squirt, of course, caused me to slip into my Zoe fantasy for a second, but I quickly recovered. I felt the exciting sense of change coming my way. And I wasn’t going to miss it. “So you want to move up to server?” He asked raising his brow.



“Sure, that totally works because I’ve decided” (like right this second) “to take next semester off,” I said as I scraped crumbs from the corners of my mouth with my pinky nail. As he toddled away in his own pair of too-tight khakis, I floated about in a strange place of pleasure. I am taking next semester off. They can’t make me go back. I was officially a plump college drop out, with neglected roots and sticky tennis shoes that made smacking noises.

For once it was nice not care about the have-to. I would finish school soon enough. There was no choice there, I knew that. But I was going to take the fall semester off. I’d get it all back together after the holidays and be back in form by Jan-term. For now, though, I was going to let it all go—at least for a while. With this thought, I released my abs and let my new paunch see the world for the first time. Normally a binding waistband would have sent me into an obsessive, one-Frosted-Mini-Wheat-a-day diet. But this was the new me, at least for a while.

I felt like I had started a new chapter. The part of the story where the heroine spirals into some sort of disgusting, addictive or slutty behavior and the reader panics wondering how she’ll ever pull it together. But for me, it was a journey I looked forward to. Because I knew I could write the next chapter. Perhaps I’d go back to teaching aerobics, join a roller blade hockey team, or take up mountain biking and meet some rough-n-tumble boy with big hands and a great laugh on the trail. But for now, my role as a foul mouthed, beer swilling, French fry snatching waitress was, well, fun.



Once I became a fully trained server, I was surprised at how patient all the managers and other servers were with me and my complete lack of experience, organization, balance, memory, comprehension, ability to read my own scribble or work a touch screen, as well as my general indifference toward customers. It was a laid-back place and most of my superiors did bong hits in the basement before shifts so my inadequacies seemed to coast just below the blip screen. And to make things even more amazingly wonderful, my friend Sally—a fellow ex-bakery cashier and cookie breaker—was promoted to server at the same time. She too was taking some time off from college. Now, the others just referred to me as one of the tards as opposed to the tard. (Their word, not mine.)



Sally and I were never scheduled for the same shift for obvious reasons, but we’d trade shifts with people at the last second so we could work together, and get bloated-er at the bar after work on pints, bread and olive oil and cold French fries. I knew how good life was, and I did not take one second of this for granted.



One Saturday lunch shift, Sally tripped over nothing and dumped a cocktail tray carrying seven pints of beer into her chest. Her white golf shirt was now a wet clingy translucent yellow sheath revealing her big pointy granny bra. (She had packed her cookie weight onto her bosom.) I ran from the other side of the dining room to help her pick up the broken glass, and we laugh and laughed. Unable to compose ourselves, we were asked (told) to clock out and go home early. Which translated to us as “pretend to clock out (you can always say you didn’t know how later), dry off Sally’s shirt under the ladies’ room hand-dryer and go next door to the taco place and eat three baskets of chips and two bowls of cheese dip.”

Over on-the-rocks, extra-salt margaritas, we had another irrepressible giggle fit when Sally stopped crunching her chips, paused for thoughtful moment and announced that if she sat still enough she could smell her own hair. We’d been out late the night before watching a band, again, and neither of us had showered that morning before our shift, again. This little chunk of life was worth savoring. Hygiene could wait.



Way too soon, it was time to return to school and finish up in one calendar year. That was the limit my father put on the rest of my college life. So I quickly shed a few emergency pounds on my parents’ treadmill, found a cute little studio apartment near campus, and said goodbye to my Danny Devito look-a-like boyfriend (only shorter, not funny and not nearly as good looking) whose name I can’t remember, and headed back to my life, leaving my lushy waitressing days in my wake.


I moved into my new place, painted the walls in deep earth tones to the sounds of Big Head Todd and started my classes with a fresh eager perspective. My hair had back its shine, and I could fit back into my favorite jeans. I don’t know about the Duckheads, I threw them away as part of some revival ritual, and because I couldn’t get out the stale lager smell or ketchup stains. 



My new chapter was being written, and it was one full of hope and optimism. It felt good in a different kind of way. A fresh, healthy way. That is, until the day I was checking the job section for an aerobic instructor gig, I came across an ad that read: “New Outback Steak House opening soon on Eastern Bypass. Experienced servers wanted.”

 

 

 

Today I spent much of my lunch hour returning things I had purchased for myself while holiday shopping for others. 



So I hit the Gap equipped with mental blinders, intentionally crossing my eyes in an effort to blur the percentage number in every red sign trying to pounce its way into my plane of vision. I bee-lined it to the register moving at a pace and form sadly similar to the power walkers I see during lunch wearing tennis shoes with their dark pantyhose and shin-length skirts. At the register I waited while an elderly lady argued whether or not her entire credit card number was printed on receipt she had just received. “It’s just the last four digits. The rest of those are exes,” the cashier explained. I stood patiently back at the acceptable 4 to 5 feet, next to the shelf packed with Gap body sprays (placed strategically there as a subliminal “stop sign” to keep the line from over crowding), and I waited my turn. 



Once she exited the line through the entrance, I approached the counter. As I laid out my two sweaters and reached for my pre-retrieved receipt I’d placed in my back pocket for efficiency, I sensed a large shadow looming over my right shoulder. Trying to ignore the warm lentil-soup breath on the side of my neck, I pulled out my receipt and handed it to the cashier. I then heard, felt and smelled, a huge sigh and she slapped down her hand on the counter six inches from where the cashier and I were making our exchange. I had to look. I turned to see a grey wool poncho-clad woman raising her thick brows at me as if to say, Are we done here?

Our heads were so close I thought (had she been the kinder type) she could give me a peck on the check without so much as a lean-in. I turned my body around and shot a look toward the “stop sign” shelf as if to say back to her, See those people waiting back there, Poncho? That’s where ‘next-in-line’ should be. So get out of my grill, and go test some of that rain-scented body spray. We will be with you in a moment! But she didn’t care what I was thinking. That was obvious. So I purposely slowed down what should have been, and what I actually needed to be, a fairly quick and painless transaction with the cashier. “So do you need to see my Amex card?” I asked. The cashier shook her head, “Nope, $59.48 is going back on your card. Have a great day.” And she handed me the receipt, and folded the bag I’d brought in.

I stood there for a nervously hurried beat trying to think of something else to ask. Then it happened. Poncho’s pudgy upper arm pressed against mine. Was she actually trying to push me out of the way? I wanted so badly to pull out my lip liner, gloss and a compact and apply slowly right where I stood. But that’s just tacky unless you’re in the bathroom, your office or at a stoplight. So I let out my biggest baddest sigh. And then returned to my car mumbling my should-have-saids. 



Once in my car, I gathered my Banana Republic receipt before backing out. As I attempted to turn right to exit the lot, a burgundy Honda Element cut me off and maneuvered itself (quite artfully I must say) into the position directly in front of me at the stoplight. Poncho! I took in and released a cleansing breath, pulled out my liner and gloss and applied it in the rear view mirror. I know when to back down (and back away).

Like many children of the seventies and eighties, I watched a lot, A LOT, of television. Way too often, TV beat out any kind of reading, fort-building or dress-up. The daytime reruns were my familiar playmates. I could smack my Charlie Chips, slurp my Shasta and burp in front of them. The primetime shows were my older role models. They were like babysitters who wore too much make-up and had boobies. But the late night sketch TV shows were my idols. Theses were the cronies my parents didn’t approve of—making them all the more exotic and alluring. At a very young age, I was sneaking out of bed to watch The Carol Burnett Show with my ear pressed against the TV speaker. In junior high, it was Saturday Night Live I cohorted with on the weekends. 



By the time I got my driver’s license, a boyfriend, and, coincidentally, boobies, SNL was reduced to an anti-depressant on nights I was grounded. (Carol didn’t make the cut.) One particular Saturday night while on restriction, I watched a skit of the Church Lady while I talked on the phone. A wigged Dana Carvey in support hose was chastising a guest about something, I don’t remember what. And while I was quite good at memorizing entire skits word-for-word (I was grounded quite a bit), the only thing I took away from this particular one was a single word.

“Well, then,” the Church Lady said, “I suppose that leaves you plenty of time to fornicate.” I didn’t catch exactly what they were discussing, but what a totally awesome new word. FORNICATE. It was unusual and had a kick to it. It sounded smart, yet it was easy to pronounce. I instantly downloaded it to memory—all the while assuming it meant to goof-off. I have no idea why, I just did.



The next Monday afternoon, I was manning my post in the Vice Principal’s Office where I was an aid during sixth period. A woman and her daughter walked in. The mother leaned over and signed in her daughter on the sheet, writing Dentist Appt. in the rectangle titled Reason. “What class are you headed to?” I asked reaching in my drawer for my powerful yellow check-in pass pad.

“Mrs. Thomas’ geometry,” the girl answered.



Sophomore. I thought. How cute. I started to write out the pass, while the girl and her mother stood waiting. I looked at the clock and smiled. “I’ll write it for five extra minutes.” And then I said it. “That’ll give you plenty of time to FORN-I-CATE.” With this, I proudly slid the slip across the desk to the girl. I kept my head lowered while doing so to give the two a moment to absorb my eloquence and me time to conceal my gloat. But when I looked up, the ultra-impressed expression I’d expected to see on the mother’s face was instead one of utter shock and horror. She clapped her hands down onto her child’s shoulder, spun her ninety degrees and shoved her out the door in one swift movement. 



That was weird, I said to myself. She’s never heard that word, I guess. But what a rude reaction. Huh.


After the bell rang and I headed for my seventh period English class, it hit me. What if this lovely new word meant something else besides goofing-off? My pace quickened in time with my heart rate. I made it to Ms. Swindle’s class in seconds flat, skipping my locker stop. I collapsed to my knees in front of the bookcase where she kept the dictionaries. Fornicate. Fornicate. I ran my finger down the Foible-to-Fox page until it stopped at the word. Fornicate-v: to commit fornication. Not helping! Down a line more. Fornication-n: 1. To consort with prostitutes. 2. Sex acts performed when unmarried. 



The word I shouted out at that moment (one I’d heard on HBO that, ironically, carried a very similar meaning) got me sent right back down to the Vice Principal’s Office—knowing that this time I would not be earning an elective.

 

The other day someone mentioned the name of a little French restaurant on Southside, and I instantly flashed to me barfing lobster bisque onto our driveway after dinner there two Februarys ago. It wasn’t the food that made me sick (or the wine); it was a stomach virus my daughter brought home from school. And it happened to hit just as we arrived home that evening. 



Recalling the horror of it all made me ponder how long it had been since I’d hosted a stomach bug. Two years exactly. Huh, I thought. I wonder if I can live a good long life without ever having one again? I bet I can do it.

That very night after my husband clicked off the special post-Super Bowl episode of House, I had trouble falling asleep. Something just wasn’t right. I tossed around like flipper in search of a magical portal to a peaceful, sleepy place. Images of Dr. House’s diagnosis and those graphic shots they show of what’s happening inside the body flickered as I squirmed, and my mind swelled with drama. I felt hot and sick.

Maybe I had the same thing the woman House treated had. I don’t remember what it was called, but House was the only one who could save her. Where would I find a real-life Dr. House to fix me? I hope he’d be nicer to me than the TV Dr. House. “I don’t feel good!” I blurted out loud. “I’m sorry, Honey. Please be still,” whispered my husband.



Three hours later, I was yanked from my covers and dragged into the bathroom by an invisible beast. What happened after that is just way too revolting to share. But I will say there were two sides to the story, if you catch my drift. It was bad. Real bad.

When round-one was over—I knew there would be more—I gripped the counter for balance and squinted into the mirror at my lifeless expression. My skin was the color and texture of iceberg lettuce. I wiped away my sweat mustache, splashed water on my face and turned to head back to bed. As I reached up a cold clam-hand to turn out the light, I spotted the digital scales on the floor beneath the towel rack. I couldn’t stop myself, I had to do it. I could barely stand, but I had to. One point five pounds lighter than this morning. So cool, I weakly glowed as I harmoniously questioned my sanity and cringed at my vanity. Dr. House would not be amused. 



I slept for two more hours before the next vomit/ria fest, and then again for an hour, until I hit the dreaded every-thirty-minutes mark. That’s when I stopped trying to swing a deal with God and started begging for a cold and cozy grave. At some point, I managed to jerk down a towel for a blanket before slipping unconscious.

Almost violently, I burst into a dream where I was making out with Dr. House. He had coffee breath and tense lips. He seemed frustrated and not at all into it. But, somehow, I totally was. Just as he managed to push me off him with his cane, and I was suggesting we backpack to Prague, my eyes swung open.

I was soaked in sweat and drooling onto the shag bathmat. About twenty minutes later, I had labored my way to my feet and peeled the bathmat from my body. Then, with way more effort than should be medically allowed in my state, I stepped on the scales, for the fourth or fifth time. I painstakingly resisted the primal impulse to brace myself. Holding on to something would affect the scales’ reading. 



After swaggering back to bed—a little over three pounds lighter but without the spring in my step to match—I shivered myself to sleep. Once again Dr. House haunted my head uninvited. He was into me, I said to myself. He was just playing it cool.